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Dead, and say what the dead one would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending novirtues. Those who came to such services sometimes found them painful and disturbing, but there were manywho decided that their life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tellthe truth for them.On Earth it remained a religion among many religions. But for those who traveled the great cave of space andlived their lives in the hive-queen's tunnels and harvested the hive-queen's fields, it was the only religion. Therewas no colony without its Speaker for the Dead.No one knew and no one really wanted to know who was the original Speaker. Ender was not inclined to tellthem.When Valentine was twenty-five years old, she finished the last volume of her history of the bugger wars. Sheincluded at the end the complete text of Ender's little book, but did not say that Ender wrote it.By ansible she got an answer from the ancient Hegemon, Peter Wiggin, seventy-seven years old with a failingheart."I know who wrote it," he said. "If he can speak for the buggers, surely he can speak for me."Back and forth across the ansible Ender and Peter spoke, with Peter pouring out the story of his days and years,his crimes and his kindnesses. And when he died, Ender wrote a second volume, again signed by the Speaker forthe Dead. Together, his two books were called the Hive-Queen and the Hegemon, and they were holy writ."Come on," he said to Valentine one day. "Let's fly away and live forever.""We can't," she said. "There are miracles even relativity can't pull off, Ender.""We have to go. I'm almost happy here."第 339 页 共 340 页http://www.en8848.com.cn/ 原 版 英 语 阅 读 网